If you aren’t familiar with it, Minimum Wage Historian is one of my favorite history pages on the web, and it really should get a show on the History channel. It would be a whole lot better than the Ancient-Hitler-Nostrodomus-Aliens shows they usually run (though to be fair the new Hatfield/McCoy movie looks pretty good).

MWH has lots of great history, but presents it a little differently. Instead of just talking about historical events, he has a roundtable discussion about the events. Only the guest panelists made up of various historical figures (Most of whom are insane) and brought forward to today. (for example, Ceasar discovered a love of Hot Pockets, as he logically should, because come on… Hot Pockets are awesome). Plus Napoleon trolls the comments.

Zach discovered that there was a conquistador/historian by the name of Gaspar Correia. He comes from the same area as my ancestors, but I have no idea if we are actually related. (Correia is a relatively common Portuguese name) However, he had a reputation of being the least reliable of any of the historians of that era because he pretty much just made crap up… Defeating entire nations with a couple dozen guys can get to be so ho-hum, so why not spice up that map with some gargoyles and maybe some laser beams?

And it wasn’t enough to just make up normal stuff, but his journals usually featured monsters and magical adventure.

“Hey, Correia, what’s on the other side of those mountains?”

“Well, Captain Vasco.. That’s where the Mole People’s City of Gold was melted by dragons.”

“Well how about that? Okay, let’s get back to work. This village ain’t gonna massacre itself!”

So MWH has added Gaspar, my ancestor(?), to the panel. Obviously, being another Correia that was fixated on making up stories about monsters, he is full of useful info.